08/04/2026
The other day, a scene from The Three Musketeers drifted into my mind. Maybe it was random. It probably wasn’t. Either way, I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.
Three musketeers stand alone, surrounded on every side by soldiers loyal to a man conspiring against his own king. Three against an army. No reinforcements. No grand strategy. Just the quiet resolve to stand for what is right, even when the cost appears certain. The air is heavy with inevitability. Death is within a sword’s reach.
But then…
One by one, scattered throughout the crowd, men cast off their cloaks. Beneath the dull fabric flashes the unmistakable blue of the Musketeers, uniforms they had been ordered to destroy. They had been there all along. Watching. Waiting. Ready.
All it took was three men willing to step forward first.
I get chills every time watching the sea of blue appear.
Courage has a way of spreading. It moves quietly at first, almost unnoticed, until one act of conviction gives another person permission to find their own. Someone has to be willing to stand when the outcome is uncertain, when the risk is real, when the crowd is still holding its breath. More often than not, that first step is the spark that lights a hundred more.
But communities are never changed by people hiding beneath cloaks.
They’re changed by the people who decide they’re done waiting for someone else to make the first move.
I know some people think I’m silly for running again. But here’s the thing — I’m willing to be one of the three who steps forward first, even when the end isn’t colored in hope. And I know most of you are just like me.
That courage will prove contagious here, too. That one by one, people who have been quietly waiting will step forward, throw off their own cloaks, and say, “I’m in.”